


That's On Me

by LilyBalfast



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Depression, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Other, Self-Destruction, Self-Hatred, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-23 18:44:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15612579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyBalfast/pseuds/LilyBalfast
Summary: Tony Stark returns to Earth from Titan after the final events of Infinity War, and falls back into his old habits of alcohol abuse. His friends and loved ones try to help him, but can you really help someone if they won't even let you inside the door?





	That's On Me

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is an Infinity AU where Avengers 4 never happens (whatever happens in that movie is still a mystery anyway), and was spawned by discussing angst AUs on a discord servers. We started discussing this one, I got idea after idea, and I just had to write it. I posted it to my tumblr a few days ago because I was still waiting for the invitation email to here, but now it's finally arriving where I originally planned to post it.

They had been so close to winning, the gauntlet had nearly come off, but then that ginger hothead just had to lose his cool, and now Tony was struggling to even stand because he’d gotten stabbed by his own armor. He understood of course, he would have reacted the same way if it had been Pepper, or Rhodes, or even Peter. So now Thanos had left for Earth, five infinity stones in his possession, to take the last from the final line of defence that Earth had. Their only hope now was what remained of the Avengers, and whoever else wasn’t an official member, and he hoped for dear god that they had gotten a hold of Steve by now. If only Steve still had his shield, they would have a bigger chance of winning… If they lost now, if Thanos got the final stone from Vision, that would be on Tony. He was the one who’d been the final obstacle between Thanos and Earth when Quill had fucked up his own plan, and he was the one who had given up his plan for Quill’s, he was the one who had told Peter to go after Strange, he was the reason that Strange had given up the time stone. It was all on him.

“Something’s happening…” said the insect-like woman who accompanied Quill. Tony looked up at her only to see her disintegrate into millions of particles of dust. No… It couldn’t be… The big, grey, muscular one was looking down at his right hand in fear as it too started to vanish into dust.

“Quill?” said the grey man, and hearing the fear in the voice of a warrior who had shown nothing but pure bravery since Tony had met him sent a shiver of panic through Tony’s body. Steve and the others had failed, and it was all his fault. If he hadn’t signed those stupid accords, they would have been in top form to fight Thanos, but because of Tony, they had been scattered and weakened. The earth’s mightiest heroes had lost their might. The panic in Quill’s eyes snapped him out of his self loathing.

“Steady, Quill,” he said, preparing to calm him, knowing the panic that was filling the both of them, but it was already too late.

“Oh man…” said Quill, just before turning into dust and floating off with the soft wind.

“Tony…”

He turned slowly to face the wizard, already shaking. There was a mix of recognition and sympathy in his eyes, and the tone of his voice was the same that Tony used to calm Rhodey’s panic attacks he’d developed after the incident with Vision.

“There was no other way…” he said, and Tony wasn’t sure if Strange meant it as a comfort for Tony or to explain why he’d given up the time stone. Before Tony could ask, however, Strange blew away in a cloud of dust as well.

“Mr. Stark…”

No. God no, not him, please. Not Peter. He turned around to face him with fear filling his entire being.

“I don’t feel so good…”

Tony’s fear was nothing compared to the sheer terror projected in Peter’s face as the boy struggled to walk towards him.

“You’re alright,” said Tony, both to try to calm Peter and in a desperate attempt to assure himself that it was the truth.

“I don’t- I don’t know what’s happening- I don’t-” said Peter, the fear getting clearer by each word spoken. He stumbled and fell into Tony’s arms, and he could feel Peter’s weight strain on his weakened body.

Tony swore he heard him whisper ‘save me’, breaking his heart, as how much he wanted to, he couldn’t save him, not this time.

“I don’t wanna go…” he sobbed into Tony’s chest, and Tony tried to comfort him but the panic was too strong, he couldn’t speak a single word, and he hated himself for it.

“I don’t wanna go, Mr. Stark, please…”

He was supposed to protect Peter. Peter was HIS responsibility, and he’d failed him.

“I don’t wanna go… I don’t wanna go…”

Tony’s wound finally took its toll on him and Peter fell to the ground as he couldn’t hold on to him any longer. Peter’s eyes struggled to focus enough to find Tony, and he knew there were only mere moments left to say something, anything, to comfort the boy who had become like a son to him, before it was too late.

“I’m sorry…” Peter whispered, and a moment later, he was gone. Dust in the wind. Tony desperately grabbed at the spot he’d just lied at, but all he got was a handfull of dust, mixing into the blood from his wound that was already covering his hand. He sat there, staring at his dusty palm in silence for a second, refusing to believe it was true.

“He did it…” said the blue cyborg behind him, and he wanted to shout at her, tell her to shut up, that obviously he did it, that he had just watched a 16 year old boy beg for his life, beg to the person who had always been there for him, that had always gotten him out of his messes, who had always saved him. He wanted to scream into the orange sky above him, but not a sound escaped his mouth. He clenched his fist, holding onto the little part of Peter he still had left, and brought the hand to his face, staring into nothingness. A tear fell as he closed his eyes, and right then he felt his defences break undre the weight of his evergrowing panic. His whole body was shaking violently, his beating got quicker and quicker until he barely got any air at all, and his tearducts had opened up like a broken dam. He felt a rough hand on his shoulder, and instinctively twisted his body away from it. The hand returned, this time under his chin, and forced his head to face the cyborg’s.

“Hey, listen to me,” she said firmly, grabbing his clean hand and putting it against her chest, “I need you to breathe, okay? Breathe with me, we need to get out of here as quickly as possible.”

He could feel her chest rise and fall with slow, steady breaths, and it took all of his willpower to force his lungs to do the same. It hurt because he was shaking so hard, but he fought through the pain.

“Keep going, you’re doing good,” she said, a hint of compassion flashing across her face, “I thought I’d never have to do this again after Gamora ran away from Thanos, but I guess it’s a good thing I remembered how to. Can you speak yet?”

He struggled to focus his eyes on hers, and softly shook his head.

“That’s fine, just keep breathing. You’ll be alright in no time, I promise.”

They sat there for what felt like hours to Tony, her being surprisingly patient considering he’d only seen her being a ball of pure rage up until now. Once he was able to stand, she helped him get to the pod she’d arrived in, and they headed back to Earth, Tony eventually passing out out of exhaustion.

The first and hardest thing he did upon returning to Earth was drive to Queens and walk up to the door of May Parker. It had taken him almost ten minutes of staring at the door until he’d mustered up the strength to lightly tap his knuckles against it.

“Peter? Is that y-” said a voice from behind the door, stopping mid sentence when the door opened. May’s eyes widened in fear of what she didn’t want to believe.

“Ms. Parker,” he began, voice rough and a bit growly, “I am so sor-”

“HOW COULD YOU?!” she screamed at him, running up to him and slamming her fists into his chest. He didn’t fight back, after all, he deserved every punch. “I TRIED TO GET HIM TO STOP! I TOLD HIM HE’S TOO YOUNG! THAT IT’S TOO DANGEROUS! THAT HE’S NOT EVEN 18! BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT HE SAID?!”

“May, I’m-”

“NO! DO YOU KNOW WHAT HE SAID TO ME? HE SAID, 'THAT WOULDN’T STOP MR. STARK,’ HE TOLD ME 'MR. STARK BELIEVES IN ME’! ALL HE CARED ABOUT WAS MAKING YOU PROUD, AND LOOK WHERE THAT GOT HIM, YOU… YOU… You…”

May completely broke and fell into his arms, crying into the same spot that Peter had before he died. She was right and he knew it. Peter had told him once in one of the hundreds of voice mails he’d left him and Happy. He’d told him that the reason he’d become a hero was because Tony had saved him back when Vanko had sent his drones after Tony. Peter had tried to take down one of the drones using his toys, trying to be brave like Iron Man. And Tony had destroyed the drone for him, and said “Nice work, kid.” Tony had encouraged him, Tony was the reason he’d become a hero. Tony was the reason he was dead. Tony decided then and there that he would be Iron Man no more, he swore that he would never go close to another armor, not even if the world was at stake. Because what if he inspired someone else to go and get themself killed? No. No more. Earth had other heroes to protect it.

About a week later, Tony was sitting in front of his desk in his workshop, staring at the holographic screen if front of him that was currently broadcasting all the news channels that were mentioning anything about the deaths caused by Thanos, while at the same time having FRIDAY nite down every single name mentioned. He was reading every name as it popped up, drinking the fifth whiskey of that day. Every name that was written down was one more death that he was responsible for. Every day that passed brought new names to his list, and one day a name caught him off guard. A name he hadn’t thought about in a long time, not since the Mandarin incident. Harley Keener. Harley Keener was dead, because Tony had failed to protect him, Tony had failed to live up to his expectations. Tony had failed at being a hero. He felt the self loathing grow so strong that he could barely focus on the names, so he started chugging his whiskey until he had to stop to actually breathe for a second. He looked over to another screen and looked at the dozens of missed calls he’d gotten from Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, and even a few from Steve. But he didn’t want to talk to them, he didn’t want to talk to anyone. He wanted to be alone, counting the names day by day, until the list was complete, and then… He hadn’t decided on that just yet.

After each week that passed, the drinking only got worse and worse. His maids got used to cleaning up his vomit off of the floor every morning, up until Tony got sick of them disturbing his solitude, and decided on firing them. More time passed, and dust started to gather all over his home, but he didn’t bother to clean it up, because… Because it reminded him of Peter. Several more months passed, and Tony’s previously well kept muscles were fading away, he was losing a lot of weight because he only ate what he needed to survive. His beard, that had constantly been well trimmed in the past, had now grown out into one comparable to Thor’s, and his clothes bore the stench of sweat, alcohol, and vomit. FRIDAY tried time and time again to get him to clean himself up, but he eventually got tired of her too and muted her, telling her only to speak up if there was something important.

Eventually he was so frequently drunk that he started to lose track of when one day ended and when the other began. By this time he had started staring resentfully at his wall of armors, hating every single one of them with a passion. He hated himself even more for ever thinking it would be a good idea to build them. Hell, even the first armor he’d ever made ended up killing Yinsen because the man had wanted to act the hero for him. Even before that, the very weapons he’d created to protect them had been used against innocent civilians, Tony hadn’t known about it until it was too late. The only reason he’d gotten into the weapons business in the first place was to make his father proud, to feed his own egoistic self worth, and people were dead because of him. Every decision he’d ever made had lead to destruction. Not even Rhodey or Pepper wanted anything to do with him anymore, he’d even gotten the divorce papers in the mail the other day, along with a letter explaining how she just couldn’t deal with him right now, how it was taking a toll on her own emotional problems, and he hated himself even more. His entire world was completely ruined, and it was all because of those fucking suits…

Filled with a drunken rage, he grabbed the biggest wrench he could find, and almost ran towards the nearest suit of armor. He screamed at it while he beat it senseless with the wrench, over and over, a large clang filling the room with every hit. He almost wished it would fight back, but it didn’t. The suit just stood there, gaining dent after dent. It wasn’t enough. Tony grabbed the gauntlet of the suit and twisted it off, then slid his own hand into it. He looked at the helmet with pure hatred searing through him, raised his arm, and blew a giant hole in the armor’s chest. He turned to the other armors, and one after one, destroyed his entire life’s work. When he was done, he had to catch his breath, as he was severely out of shape. It was then that FRIDAY spoke up for the first time since he’d muted her.

“Sir, your list of names is complete, ca 3.5 billion names have been noted down for you.”

“Good…” he panted, walking slowly towards his desk, “Print it… And play audio file P.P_15. I need some motivation…”

He grabbed the list of names and read the first name written, the only name he had put in himself: Peter Parker. As he grabbed a pen and wrote his own name at the very bottom of the list, the room was filled with the sound of that very voice. Tony closed his eyes, charged up the repulsor, held it against his head, and listened, wanting to wait until it was finished.

“Hey, Mr. Stark, it’s Peter. Uhm, Parker. I wanted to leave you a status update on today’s events. I already left one to happy, I just thought… Actually I just… I just wanted to talk. So there was this robbery of a grocery store today, but there were only five guys with shotguns, so I was able to take them out with no problems. There was this one guy though who was holding this kid as hostage, the kid couldn’t have been more than 10, and when I saved him his eyes just had this… This shine to them, you know? So I asked his name, and told him 'Miles, you’re the bravest kid I’ve met,’ and all of that reminded me of the reson why I chose to be a hero. It was all because you saved me, Mr. Stark. I bet you don’t even remember… No, it’s note like I’m- I don’t mean you don’t care about who you save! I just mean you save so many people that must be impossible to keep track of them all. Back when I was a kid like that, and those hammer robots were attacking everything. I was so foolish… I thought that I could take one of them down because I had a toy mask of your helmet and a toy repulsor, and I would have been dead if it hadn’t been for you swooping down and saving me. You even told me that I did a good job. Man, that day stuck with me for all my life… And that was the first thing I thought about when that spider gave me my powers, so I decided to become a hero like you. But then I got hurt, and I got scared, so I stopped. I chose to just be regular high schooler Peter Parker. And about a week later, my uncle gets shot. And I could have saved him, if I hadn’t been so scared. I asked myself, what would Iron Man have done? So, I stood back up and kept fighting, no matter how hurt I got. I wouldn’t let another uncle get shot. I would keep fighting until there was no fight left in me. I keep wondering if that kid will be a hero too one day… Heh… Oh crap, I’ve been talking for way too long! Uhm, goodbye, Mr. Stark, and… Thank you for saving me.”


End file.
